“And your family?” he asked.

She picked up her glass, twirled it slowly for the pleasure of seeing the light of the candle refracted off the crystal, and sipped the wine.

“None,” she said. “And so there is nothing to say. No secrets to hide or divulge. Let me tell you about my home in Kent—Copeland. The duke bought it for me five years ago. He always referred to it as my quaint little country box, but it is neither quaint nor little nor a box. It is a manor, even a mansion. And it has a park that rolls away in all four directions from the house in a rural splendor that is half cultivated, half not. At least, it is all well kept, but it is all natural woodland and natural grassland and a natural lake. There are no arbors or parterres or wilderness walks. It really is quite … rustic. That is something the duke might have called it without any sacrifice of accuracy.”

She cut into her beef, which looked and felt as if it had been cooked to perfection.

“It is all perhaps a little too natural for you, Duchess?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” she said, “I fear it is. I feel that I ought to impose my human will upon it all, that it ought to look pretty, as the garden this afternoon looked pretty.”

“And yet?” He paused in his eating again.

“And yet,” she said, “I confess to liking it as it is. Nature needs to be tamed sometimes. It is only civilized. But ought we to force it to be something it is not meant to be just for the sake of beauty? What is beauty?”

“Now there,” he said, “is a question for the ages.”

“You must come and see for yourself,” she said, “and tell me what you think.”

“I must come?” He raised his eyebrows. “To Kent?”

“I shall arrange a brief house party a little later in the Season when everyone is starting to find the endless round of balls here tedious,” she said. “It will all be perfectly respectable, I assure you, though everyone will know by then, of course, that we are lovers. People always do know these things, even when they are not true. Which will not be the case with us. You will give me your opinion about the park.”

“And you will follow my advice?” he asked.

“Quite possibly not,” she said. “But I will listen anyway.”

“I am honored,” he said.

“And I am full,” she announced. “You will give your chef my compliments, Mr. Huxtable?”

“I will,” he said. “He will be vastly relieved to know that he is not to be dismissed tomorrow morning. Do you not want cheese or coffee? Or tea?”

She did not. She had been trying all evening to distract herself with conversation. And she had been trying to pretend to herself that she was hungry—which she ought to be since she really had not eaten since the garden party, when he had filled a plate with dainties for her from the table on the upper terrace.

She rested one elbow on the table, set her chin in her hand, and gazed at him between the two candles.

“Only dessert, Mr. Huxtable,” she said and felt all the delicious anticipation of what she had dreamed about through the second half of her year of mourning and planned during the months since Christmas.

Anticipation and trepidation too. She must certainly not show the latter. It would seem quite out of character.

She was so glad it was him. She would have been disappointed if he had not been in town this year. Not devastated. She had had other, perfectly eligible alternatives in mind. But none quite to match Constantine Huxtable.

She thought he might be an extraordinary lover. In fact, she was quite confident that he would be.

And she was about to find out if she was right. He had stood up, pushing his chair out of the way with the backs of his legs, and he was coming the short distance around the table to offer her his hand.

It was warm and firm, she discovered as she set her own in it. And he seemed somehow taller and broader when she got to her feet. His cologne, the same as she had noticed before, wrapped about her senses again.

“Let us go and have it, then,” he said, “without further ado.”

She looked up at him through her eyelashes.

“I do hope this chef does not disappoint,” she said.

“If he does, Duchess,” he said, “I shall not only dismiss him in the morning, I shall also take him out to some remote spot and shoot him.”

“Drastic measures indeed,” she said. “And what a waste it would be of all that Greek beauty. But doubtless it will be quite unnecessary. For he will not disappoint. I will not allow it.”

He tucked her arm through his and led her from the room.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE was sometimes quite inadequate to express one’s thoughts, Constantine had been realizing all evening. What words were there to describe something that was more beautiful than beautiful and more perfect than perfect?

He had always thought of the Duchess of Dunbarton as a perfectly beautiful woman even when he had not felt particularly drawn to her.

Tonight she exceeded those superlatives.

He could not remember ever seeing her in any color but white. He had always thought it remarkably clever of her to make that single color her signature, so to speak. But of course, this departure from the norm was equally clever—and stunning.

She looked … Well, she looked those words that did not exist. Stunning was perhaps the only word that was even remotely adequate.

His cook might have served them leather and gravel for all the attention he had paid to his meal. And all the while he had had to concentrate hard upon not gawking.

The color of her gown and jewels transformed her from an ice queen into some sort of fertility goddess. And her hair, which every male member of the ton had probably dreamed of seeing tumble about her shoulders, was in a billow of riotous waves down her back while it hugged her head in shining smoothness.

The décolletage of her gown left little to the imagination and yet teased it nevertheless. Just one inch lower …

Monty had called her dangerous that afternoon in Hyde Park.

She was more dangerous than the Sirens of mythology.

And she had carried on a conversation that contained almost none of the innuendo that usually characterized their verbal exchanges. Indeed, when she had got to talking about her home in Kent, she had sounded … warm. As if she genuinely liked the place.

She was very, very clever. He was going to have to be very careful, he thought as he led her in silence up the stairs in the direction of his bedchamber. Though he did not know quite over what he needed to exercise care. They were about to become lovers, after all. And they would remain lovers, probably, for the whole Season.

Not any longer than that, of course. And if she wished to make it not so long, well then, that was her choice. He was not going to be heartbroken, was he?

There was a single branch of candles burning on the low chest in the corner of his room. The bedcovers had been turned back, the curtains drawn across the window, a wine decanter and glasses left on a tray beside the bed. Everything was ready.

He closed the door behind them.

The Duchess of Dunbarton sighed audibly as she slipped her arm from his and turned toward him. It sounded almost like the purr of a contented cat.

“There is nothing quite like the pleasure of anticipation, is there?” she said. “It has been humming through my blood since this afternoon, I must confess. I am not at all sorry I decided to cancel my earlier appointment and come here instead.”

She set the tip of her finger lightly against the point of his chin and moved it slowly back and forth. Her eyes followed her finger.

“I am not altogether sorry either,” he admitted.

“You will savor every moment, I trust,” she said. “I do hope you are not one of those men who feel they must demonstrate their masculinity by the speed with which they run the race.”